cheesy creamy greens on pasta.

oops.

OK, I forgot to take pictures, sorry. But this is good.

I was at a board meeting for the EMA Fund recently, where I am on the board (and where gina marie and sarah emily have both volunteered. If you want to volunteer, or give us money, you should let me know!) At this board meeting the host made us some food. It was *really* good, and I had to have the recipe. So, Erin Kate gave it to me (apparently it originally appeared in an Oregon newspaper in the nineties? sure!), and I made it for an EMA fundraising meeting that was at my house last night. Erin Kate had made it with spinach, I made it with chard and kale, since that what was looking less than stellar from the farmshare. I actually also had a lot of collard greens, but I was too afraid that I would try it and they would be tough. You can't really "wilt" collards.

OK, so here's what I did:

Melted 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter over medium heat in large saute pan; added 6 or 7 cloves of finely chopped garlic and cooked it for 2-3 minutes.

Since I wasn't using spinach, I had to prepare my greens. I stripped the rainbow chard and the curly kale leaves off of their stems (I used a knife for the chard because it was so old and wilty, but the kale I could just sort of pull off.) I had just a little more than one farmshare bunch kale, and probably half a bunch of chard. Sorry I can't be more specific - maybe 12-15 stalks total? possibly more? I don't think it matters. once stripped, I chopped the greens into spinach leaf size pieces, and dropped it into the saute pan with a little salt.

then I covered it, and started working on the salad. I let it go maybe just a little longer than I should have. I stirred once. I think you want to cook it until just before any of the greens start to brown.

Next I added a medium sized container of heavy cream to the greens. I simmered that on medium high for about ten minuted. Then I used my immersion blender to coarsely chop the mixture in the saucepan, and to spray creamy greens all over myself!

Finally I added some more salt, several solid twists of the pepper grinder, and the juice of half a lemon. I also grated some fresh nutmeg (I had never tried this before. it is awesome. this is clearly the secret to yummy cheese sauces) and added an extra-large pinch of that.

When my 1.5 lbs of whole wheat penne finished cooking, I combined it with the sauce and some olive oil in bowl. et voila! came with salad of freshness from stone soup farm, and yummy onion dill bread, also from the farmshare.

I think this would be good on rice too.

me against the vegetables

this is the pattern of CSA cooking: the night before your new delivery of farm food, you look around your kitchen at the leftover vegetables and think, "what kind of a dish can these all make together?" as a result, one night of the week sort of becomes ExperiMental night.

last night I set the brown rice up to cook and then began exploring my vegetable state. I had some leeks that my roommate had already prepped, some radishes that needed to be used, and a summer squash. I chopped it all up, added some garlic - obvi - and set about sautéing it. began with some olive oil and the garlic, added the leeks and the radishes, and then threw the summer squash on there. just as I was about to add the squash, I thought to myself, "I don't believe I've ever had cooked radishes." and that was the point where I realized that, as pretty as my food may look in the pan, there was no guarantee it would taste pretty in my mouth.

when everything looked well sautéed , I put in a hefty amount of lemon juice, some white wine, and black pepper. mixed it all up, let it simmer for a while, and then poured the mess over my brown rice. and you know what? it was real nice.

UNRELATED: I'd like to recommend a band - the Low Anthem. this is pretty much unrelated to food, except for the fact that I would like their album What the Crow Brings to be the soundtrack to my life when I live on a farm and cook food in dusk light.

when life gives you lemons, use a can opener

my roommate is moving out right now. she is taking everything. I don't think I realized how shoddy my kitchen collection was until she boxed her stuff up. I'm choosing to see this more as an opportunity to get the things I want rather than a problem. but this positive attitude can sometimes be challenging.

for instance, tonight I set about making dinner. the first thing I did was pull out a pot for the rice and check the refrigerator for vegetables. the second thing I did was get a cutting board for the red pepper and onion I had found. the third thing I did was realize that I don't own any cutting knives, so back into the fridge went the red pepper and onion. rice was still okay. I checked my cabinets. I had a can of beans, a can of coconut milk, and - perhaps most importantly - a can opener.


put the coconut milk (first pressing) into a large sauce pan. add 1.5 tablespoons of brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of red curry paste. stir the mixture over medium heat until the paste and brown sugar have dissolved and the coconut milk has become more liquid. this is a surefire sauce that is so quick, so easy, and so yummy that you won't really mind that you're just eating beans and rice for dinner.

penne with sweet pepper sauce and sweet italian sausages

This is another of my dad's old standbys. He actually used to make this at his restaurant. I made it more than a week ago, but I will try to remember the details.

To start off, bought some *sweet* italian sausages at the whole foods. Usually I get little ones - but these were twice the size! I put them in a frying pan with the heat on low. I turn them every 5 minutes or so. I later learned from Kristen that slicing them into quarters lengthwise cooks 'em faster and more evenly. gonna try that next time.

gina marie sliced a whole yellow onion and we also sliced (into long medium strips, not chopped) 2 red, 1 yellow, and 1 orange bell peppers. We added this along with a lot of chopped garlic into a big saute pan with some olive oils and put the heat on low.

once the peppers had softened I seasoned with some thyme and a little pepper. then I added half a can of low-sodium chicken broth and brought it just to a simmer and then turned the heat back to medium. I let that simmer until the broth had reduced a bit and added 1 can of diced tomatoes.

continued to let this all cook on medium low. towards the end I added half a stick of butter to the sauce. just let it melt and stir.



when my sauce was the consistency I wanted, I added some chopped fresh basil at the very end. The following pictures were to document my basil chopping method Stack up some leaves, roll them, then slice the roll-up:



Then I served it over whole wheat penne. (I made too much penne - one box would have cut it - also, generally I wouldn't use whole wheat for this -but it's better for you!) Also, served with parmesan.






Kristen made it awesome by bringing us her favorite bottle of french red. Excellent!




Vegan options: use vegetable broth, veggie sausages, no butter at the end

getting saucy

my cooking can arguably be described as variations on a theme: I cook some vegetables up and serve them on brown rice or whole wheat pasta. sometimes I throw some polenta in there but mostly I don't. however, even I sometimes want a bit of variety. and that's where the sauce comes in.

I don't like heavy sauces because the whole point of my cooking is that I want to know what my food tastes like. but I do want a sauce that will make my veg taste like super exciting versions of themselves. and, if possible, I want to make it myself.

there is an art to the sauce. I am aware of that, although I have no idea how to access that art. for me, sauces are still in the lab stage - I mix some things together and hope that nothing blows up. (I've finally learned to do my mixing outside of the dish in which I'm cooking.) but I like this experimentation. I don't get a white lab coat - a long-standing dream of mine, but I do get to feel like I'm creating a dish versus enabling one.

last night's sauce recipe: 1 healthy teaspoon of red chili paste, 1 healthy pinch of brown sugar, and 1 slow pour of soy sauce. mix in a glass. mix with the carrots, broccoli, and red cabbage over medium high heat. get a little reckless and splash some red wine out of your glass into the pan. enjoy over brown rice.